REUTERS - Retail sales, the key gauge for consumer demand, the primary driver of economic growth, were up 2.4 percent year-on-year in April after a 2.0 percent rise in the year to March. Capital investment, the next most important driver, was up 3.6 percent year-on-year in the first quarter after increasing 1.4 percent in the same period a year earlier.

NYT - China and India are the biggest buyers of Iranian crude, but they also provide markets for 40 percent of Venezuelan exports, which have been plummeting under the weight of mismanagement, debt and American financial sanctions.

SHANA - Climate Action and Energy Commissioner Miguel Arias Cañete met Iranian Minister of Petroleum Bijan Zangeneh in his Tehran office on Saturday in a bid to protect Iran's oil trade following US withdrawal from the nuclear deal.

IRNA - since banning Iran’s oil exports was the first sanction imposed by the US, in their statement, Europeans has put extra emphasis on the continued sale of Iran’s oil and gas condensate petroleum products and petrochemicals and related transfers.

REUTERS - European Union leaders united behind the 2015 accord, and Brussels announced it would launch a legal process banning EU-based firms from complying with the sanctions that President Donald Trump has reimposed on Iran.

REUTERS - Washington was focused on using diplomatic means to halt Nord Stream 2, one of several Russian projects to export gas to western Europe via routes avoiding Ukraine, with which Moscow is involved in a series of disputes.

PLATTS - Trump's plan to leave the Iran nuclear deal and reimpose sanctions could have major impacts for global oil, natural gas, metals and petrochemical markets.

U.S. DT - President Donald J. Trump announced his decision to cease the United States’ participation in the JCPOA and begin reimposing U.S. nuclear-related sanctions on the Iranian regime. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is taking immediate action to implement the President’s decision. Sanctions will be reimposed subject to certain 90 day and 180 day wind-down periods. At the conclusion of the wind-down periods, the applicable sanctions will come back into full effect.

PLATTS - Saudi Arabia's energy minister Khalid al-Falih said Wednesday that the country would work closely with OPEC as well as non-OPEC producers to mitigate the impact of any shortages that might arise following the US' decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal.

REUTERS - Italian oil major Eni has no plans to pull out of its joint venture with Russia’s Rosneft despite escalating sanctions against Russia, the head of Eni said on Wednesday.